Recipient of 2018 Immunotherapy Clinical Trial Grant announced.

Associate Professor Mustafa Khasraw is the recipient of this grant for a clinical trial using immunotherapy.

Associate Professor Mustafa
Khasraw, who will lead the trial when it commences

A new immunotherapy clinical trial will receive funding, thanks to a $500,000 Immunotherapy Clinical Trial Grant from Cure Brain Cancer Foundation. When the trial opens, we hope it will help increase brain cancer survival rates, which have barely improved in more than 30 years. This funding will also facilitate modelling and preliminary work to introduce innovative clinical trials approaches that may help patients with other types of cancer in the long term.

SEQUITUR will be available to patients with recurrent brain cancer or rare types of gliomas- the most common form of brain cancer and other rare cancers.

The trial is expected to open end of 2019 or early 2020 (we will provide regular updates on the progress of this trial including enrolment and eligibility - it is not currently enrolling patients) and is led by
Associate Professor Mustafa Khasraw. SEQUITUR will operate out of trial sites
in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia and is an
initiative of the Cooperative Trials Group for Neuro-Oncology (COGNO), Genomic Cancer Clinical Trials
initiative (GCCTI), and the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre, University of Sydney.

Patients enrolled on SEQUITUR will be treated with a combination of therapies, including immunotherapies. If the disease progresses, despite the treatment or the patients do not respond, they might be able to be treated with a second combination. This process is known as sequential immunotherapy. SEQUITUR will be the first clinical trial to combine this type of adaptive basket trial design, combination therapy, and sequential immunotherapy.

The adaptive design of this trial means drugs that aren’t showing promise can be removed and new drugs showing promise in other cancers can be added. The knowledge gained will help researchers identify which brain cancer patients are likely to benefit from specific immunotherapies, potentially making it less likely that patients will receive drugs that are ineffective against their tumour, while reducing unnecessary side-effects. Results from SEQUITUR will also help form the basis for future studies in cancer immunotherapy.

“Innovative trial designs like SEQUITUR allow researchers to identify if treatments are working, faster than ever before,” said Michelle Stewart, CEO of Cure Brain
Cancer Foundation. “We are so pleased to provide funding for novel trial designs like this, so that researchers can find breakthroughs faster, and eventually find a cure for Australians living with brain cancer.”

“SEQUITUR is a unique opportunity to change the way we are doing clinical trials so that new and promising treatments are evaluated and made more accessible to patients in a rapid and efficient manner. This funding opportunity will help us optimise the design of SEQUITUR and expanding this line of research” commented Associate
ProfessorKhasraw.

**THIS TRIAL IS NOT YET RECRUITING AND IS IN THE DESIGN PHASE. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO KNOW IF YOU ARE ELIGIBLE FOR ANY CLINICAL TRIAL, WE RECOMMEND YOU SPEAK TO YOUR TREATING ONCOLOGIST WHO CAN REFER YOU TO PARTICIPATING INVESTIGATORS**